ND-fan

I don't know in outs of what UND does in contact but what has been mentioned above is important to keeping the support UND has now but i was referring to was new ways of contact of people who may never come to UND game but do follow the teams on tv or other means of communication like radio or in the press. By this they should have people at large state functions and have booths their just out communicating with the public and listening to what common people have to say and say asking them to join various things to support the athletic program. Examples would be state tournaments for football, basketball, volleyball, or even music events and even farther would be big trade shows to have booth with people that can engage and talk to people about what's happening have sign up for a free give away of tickets to UND sports. Second, they should have Commnication with the public schools setting up visits for schools or few going out with either just coaches or teams to get UND out in the communities. I don't know all the rules and so forth, but Athletic department needs to sell itself to the public. I also got to believe there're ways to do this also on social media. This is going to take extra people and administration following the progress of this sort of endeavor, but you won't see immediate progress but should start to see some improvement over several year period. Then they will need to get in contact with North Dakota people in other states and this will require alot of research and networking to get in contact with these people. I think i have one way of contacting the older generation in winter what we call snowbirds they have picnics to get together i believe that could be place to get in contact with that generation of people. The bottom line here is UND needs to invest way more in fund raising and communications with the public it's going to take more people to do this job and it also has to coordinate with each of sports to promote united approach in achieving support financially and participation from the community. I may be all wrong here but if not i believe we are going to slip to second tier program.

Thank you, Und Fan, very much appreciated. I agree with points on recruiting and funding for all of UND Athletics. I am not as knowledgeable as you are about the ins and outs of the Athletic program with UND but i have posted numerous times Athletic Administration i believe is not performing or doing enough to raise and promote the UND athletics. If i have criticism of Athletic department it is to focused on just Grand Forks market and has forgotten as I remember when UND projected, it represented state of North Dakota as well as Northwestern Minnesota not to mention we had name out into Canada. Second criticism I have is public relations and media department does not promote UND Athletics nearly enough to build any interest in sports at UND. I hear more facts and positives here than i do on any media sources locally. I know they are social media sites, but traditional sites are also needed because for majority especially older generations this is still primary source of information. I believe if UND athletic department would get out statewide, regionally, and nationwide with alumni or former North Dakota residents there are sources for funding UND, but it takes building relationships and listening and informing people to get them invest in UND. Athletic department needs to step up and this comes from the top to set philosophy and goals to achieve improvement in the program. I like your comments on Bubba and i am in the opinion that majority of the coaches we have here been working their buts off if given more support would we winning conference championships. This is not going to be easy fix but people like UND Fan who do have ear of people in charge need to get UND President and Athletic Director they need to step up their efforts if they want UND to become truly great Universities across the United States.

I see Darion White from Montana State is in the transfer portal with year of eligibility left. Not that were in great need of point guard right now, but she has been one of the point guards we have played against. Curious where she ends up landing. Has there been movement on the remaining scholarships we have left with signing of new players for next year.

I wouldn't worry about playing time one way or another what i would like to see all these players earning time on the court. To me that means there improving by competition. My question Matt Norman is leaving the program what his plan is moving forward does he have landing spot or is he just done with basketball. His only offer from D-I was from us and he had good year but he has limited role and he would probably not be featured like we had him shooting the three. He has offensive abilities but his defense at best is not good and he's between guard and small forward and his quickness with his feet is not there to make up for his size. yet i think he had roll he could have played here and i wonder what his future holds for him. I my guess is he's playing DII basketball for talented program next year.

The two nearest schools that play lacrosse are Denver Air Force, Utah, and Marquette and these teams are split between the ASun and Big East. This looks like a sport with tremendous travel costs and Alerus field i believe would be just big enough to fit Lacrosse field on and it may not work. I think it would be great spectator sport especially if you could have it at Alerus and reason i say it would at the Alerus would be because of weather here in the spring they already are playing right now and there's no way we would have field to play on till season was over. I just don't see it happening ever.

If we're going to continue to with Softball this program needs to have facilities update if we're ever going to compete in softball because of our climate. They need to get to where they have bubble dome facility that would allow this team to have practice facilities as well as place to play that can schedule home games with confidence. I know this is not cheap thing to propose but without it how are we ever going to attract players and develop players if we can't provide facilities where they can play during the school year. I look at other sports like football, track, and soccer have been provided facilities because of our climate. This would have been easier to propose if also had a baseball team something I am not getting into, but if we are going to have softball then we need to start looking at how we can become more successful playing the sport. It's not fair to players, coaches, and university if we're going to just throw huge Somes of money to play the sport we have no intention of competing just to satisfy the NCAA and conference. I believe if there was some leadership for athletic administration and working with donors and Grand Forks community there is probably way to funding something like this. There is huge need for facility like this in Northeastern North Dakota/Northwest Minnesota and i believe it could generate revenue also by renting facility out for high school to play games, other neighboring colleges to also play games and finally to the public for parties and activities of being able to play during the winter. This i believe should be looked at and being discussed with future facilities for UND.

yes, Ware would fit our needs perfectly for needs on front line and if she's healthy can play with ability to be star player would move us forward and have chance to compete for the conference next year. A good player usually improves everyone on the team by reducing the attention on all the other players on the team. The question is she wanting to come back to the state and second does she want to play at mid-major school or wants to play at power 5 school. This plus any number of reason but it sure wouldn't hurt to inquire the worst is they say no and if they say yes, you have gone long way on roster construction for the coming year.

I think having the conference tournament always in Sioux Falls from point of fairness is never going make a conference membership that has love for the conference. Yes it played in front of big audience and makes extra money for the teams but if you are not one of the South Dakota schools it results in loss where you could have went to the tournament these positives don’t offset your chance to go the dance. This doesn’t even mention it helps these schools advantage recruiting for players. I also think it goes in recruiting players and retaining players in the conference. I also believe it has effect on coaches tenure for all conference teams but for different reasons. We have seen this with Und hockey and is the reason they no longer allow us host a tournament it was perceived too big of advantage for us. Even now with us getting around this using Fargo this year but the NCAA bringing in higher rank team and if they get upset this year your going to see change about location of the regional tourament.

I think this pretty much ends the speculation on this board about her playing here or anywhere. I wish her good health in future and it’s right decision for her and she should not feel guilty but us who should be expressing our gratitude for her playing basketball.

Where do we stand officially for next year as i have it now, we have 10 players officially on the roster including NDoukou showing up enrolled. We have Norman and Danielson with year of eligibility left but both walked at the end of the year, and we have 3 open spots left. This means we have one open spot or we could have 3 open spots if Danielson and Norman don't return next year. I also wonder if NDoukou will be here next year. The make-up of the roster has changed quite a bit with us having only 4 guards on the roster now compared to last year having 7 last year. This coming year we will have already now 6 players of 6'8" or taller for next year. Also haven' heard what will be happening with our walk-on players. Still a lot of construction for the roster to be done within next 6 weeks.

SWSiouxMN you're thinking that SDSU is going to come back to the pack, and I have been watching them and I don't think the fall back is going to be very much at least for next season. I look at players they will start next season, and this is pretty solid team with good experience and should have good depth. I look at their probable starting lineup of Paige Myer at point guard, Timmer at shooting guard, Brooklyn Myer at one forward, Nelson at other forward, Theisen at center not to mention they have two young guards off bench Mathiowetz and Colbeck and two good forwards that would have played significant minutes most of other teams in Summit League of Vlastuin and Byom both 6' 2". This is not to mention the talk is they have good recruiting class coming in. Johnson has done heck of a job of recruiting top players to his team and his roster construction is hard to fault with having balance in players per year and having long and quick players plus having very good guards to go along with other players. My hope we continue to get better and maybe at tournament time we can surprise them.

This coming year Beal and Hurst will need to make jump in their game. Beal needs to work on her shooting and needs to work on her dribble drive to the basket because with her athleticism and size and speed she could become a dominant player. Hurst needs to work on her inside game and forget about looking for the 3 her future is in inside scoring and getting fouled. Second, she also needs to work on her defense by getting away from the silly reach in fouls because if she doesn't get over doing that, she will never get playing time to become dominant player. VanderWal will need to develop shot that she can consistently score on or be able to kick out for a three. She also needs to work on getting quicker and have more endurance to play more minutes. Aumer i think will be good guard just needs playing time and I think that is coming. McCarthy just needs to work on her shooting and get stronger so she can play more on the inside. Jardine needs more time to develop a year of redshirting wouldn't hurt because she has size to play role on this team in the future. Kacie will need to work with these young girls and lead them, but it will be frustration for her getting this team move forward because lot of teaching moments ahead for this team. Hoskins just needs to play her roll again next year and i hope her shooting improves because i have never seen person who has so many shots halfway down and come out. I just don't know if she just unlucky or something else with her shot. My hope we find couple transfers especially one to play in the post area to give us some size that contribute right away. The incoming freshmen like always will take time and hopefully couple can contribute before the season is over. Mallory and her staff have a lot of work ahead on roster construction before next season.

It’s just not the Bison but look at size of SDSU,ORU , and KC and when we played both of Montana schools we had hard time matching up with them. Watch the NCAA tournament these teams have large front lines and good quick guards if we want to be able to go the tournament make run we need to get to that level. SDSU team is structured with this mix and is why they are competing with p-5 schools and USD was similarly structured last year. When we won our national championship games we had good posts and size on our front line and when we went to NCAA tournament back in Big Sky our team was structured with couple 6’ 5” girls and our forwards were 6 feet to 5’10”. We can have respectable years as we are structured now but we never will reach level winning the conference and advancing in the tournament.

The athletics department is going to need to address not each sport individually, but they also need to address funding to maintain quality coaches and same time need to speed up their improvement in facilities plan. The athletic department needs improvement on communications to promote more positive reason athletes should come to university as well as things Grand Forks community offers to athletes. They also need to get involved greater Grand Forks community selling reasons they should come to games. For example, the basketball teams offer promotions to area schools to bring elementary students to the game not only good for athletic department but also for the school to get future students wanting to come to UND. I also think they need to work on getting the student body out to the games like food promotion and maybe some kind of participation raffle or something fun to draw students out. I know it sounds corny but professional sports do this to help market their teams. The further they develop their brand easier it becomes to market and raise money for the whole department. But they also need to put quality teams that can compete for conference championships and start winning rivalry games on regular basis. We need to have Tom Clifford attitude on how were going to beat our competition and i believe he did that nearly every day he was in charge of university, and it showed on everything in his tenure as president.

Has anyone heard if we have some pending signee or are we waiting what's available in the portal as NCAA tournament moves along. We still have 3 scholarships available as far as i know and we have to be looking for front line players and probably a post player. We need to have post player who is athletic as well has good size to play up tempo game like we like to play and can play defense extended. I am sure everyone is looking for those players, but I believe we need that immediately if with the seniors we will have back next year to make another step forward to compete with South Dakota State and several other Summit league teams. I would like to see us get couple of the players mentioned out Minnesota or Wisconsin and i don't know if were in on any North Dakota girls this year. We have some very big holes to fill after this year loosing 5 players.

If they can get to 20 win season will be definite improvement over last season and program is heading in the right direction. It would be nice to finish for Orth's career as a 1000-point scorer when she has been recognized as defensive player of the year for the conference.

Putting to much pressure on herself to score wants to reach thousand point mark.

This game follows again their weakness all year long they just can’t match up with teams that have length like Baptist. This has to be addressed next year because we’re losing to of our taller players for next year and even they were undersized and playing out of position. It appears that VanderWal and Jardine need more development may only be able to play in certain matchup at this point in their college careers.. We need at least one experience post player that we can match with Hurst. Bernard knows this and she needs to find a player before start of next season.

I think that former players should limit their response on UND especially if they have been gone from the program several years. It serves them no real purpose and they should be concerned on things where they are now. Second speaking badly about somebody can come back hurt you later in your travels of life because your future boss or potential boss may think differently could cut off opportunities in the future. I don’t know all externals between the players and coaches here and nearly all people on this board don’t know either. I think there have been mistakes made on both sides but reality is was probably better for both parties to go separate ways. I for the most part think most fans hold no deep resentment against players and wish them well. I think Sather came up in old school where basically coaches had most of power over their players and if you bucked system to much you paid price by sitting year and having hard time to find a new home. This has all changed since Sather has been hired and this has been big learning curve for all coaches. This change in situation was reflected by Sather’s end of season comments, when he said he would love to coach this group of players again next year. This statement reflected how much change has occurred in college game in last few years and why number of the old school coaches are choosing to retire. It was always hard for coaches to get players to buy into what they were trying to teach them and now I believe it’s nearly impossible to do so. The other side of this many of coaches abused their power before and is the reason for the changes we have today. I also think to many of the players believe they are going to be stars and become professional players and fact is only very select few are ever going to see that. The players that are taking advantage of playing college sport developing themselves for career that will improve their lives and opening doors for them rest of their lives are true winners. I think now college sports now needs to protect both players and colleges by developing system where players are compensated for all work time they are putting in but colleges get commitment from the players for this time effort. I believe if this doesn’t happen number of college sports may disappear because costs for both sides that institutions may drop sports and players begin to realize that if found part time job might be just as cost effective and time wise as trying to play college sport. All I know for sure is the changes we’re seeing now are going to have long term effects and the outcomes may not what we like. if you look back history we have seen where college sports have been very big and fallen out favor by public because scandal or abuses in the system we may just repeating history again with similar circumstances. Enough said and I wish Sather well and thankful for all hard work our athletes put forth each year.

I was looking at the rosters of lower bracket that UND will play and could potentially play. Cal Baptist is starts pretty tall that i think will present match up problem for us by their roster heights start 2 six-foot girls and two girls 5-10&11 and 5 -9 guard and first player in 5-8 and then they do have another 6-0 player that plays some minutes. Georgia Souther has a lot of height and appears to play number of girls. Northern Illinois also starts 3 girls at six feet or better and comparing this to upper bracket the teams are slightly smaller than average. The positive with these teams is they have beat and also lost games against common opponents but for most part the games were fairly close one way or another. So, i believe if we play up to our abilities, we should have good chance to beat these teams but were going to need to play good defense and do a good job boxing out and rebounding the basketball.

How does this tournament work is there entrance fee to cover costs and do they have a payout if there is profit to the teams. I am curious or is just cost you so much to enter the tournament. If $35,000.00 is going to make or break the athletic department UND should be then working very hard to increase revenues because they need to get some positive news out there to promote the school and students and state can look to as source of pride. Especially with quality individuals they have on this team representing us.

I see we have been selected for the tournament with first round game against cal Baptist.

I see that to be considered you have to completed contract back in February and I never heard any announcement if we did do that.

Has there been announcement on teams selected WBI tournament.

The schools must pretty much know what's going to happen before these shows go on because how else could they get this settled in few hours and agree to be part of these tournaments. Also, they have only few days to book travel and get to their designations. Especially the Wnit where the teams get to bid on hosting games. Maybe somebody knows how all this works.